


Little Gifts

by livenudebigfoot



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Established Relationship, Fluff, Irrelevant Gift Exchange, M/M, Pillow Talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-14
Updated: 2014-01-14
Packaged: 2018-01-08 16:52:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1135123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livenudebigfoot/pseuds/livenudebigfoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you have plans for Christmas?"</p><p>Small talk always sounds weird coming out of Finch's mouth. Tinny and false.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Gifts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Merry Extremely Late Christmas, kmmerc! I am your IGE pinch hitter! I hope you enjoy this story.

"Do you have plans for Christmas?"

Small talk always sounds weird coming out of Finch's mouth. Tinny and false. Finch isn't the type to fill dead air with talk; he speaks up when he wants something or he needs something, and he does it neat and quick, no frills. Or else, if it's at dinner or on the way to the hotel or in the tentative moments before sex, or in the space after, where Fusco's just blinking up at the ceiling and wondering once again how he got to this place in his life, Finch will talk a lot. But it's always about  _something_. The history of the street their hotel is on. A quick analysis of the music on the radio. Computer shit that Fusco can't follow. He never lectures about birds, though. You'd think a guy with names like Finch and Wren and Sparrow and Ostrich and whatever the hell would have more of a fixation, there. And it's not a conversation or anything, but it's Finch talking about something that excites him, that makes him happy, so that's important, in a way.

The standardized "What are you doing for the holidays?" question was something Fusco never expected from him.

Fusco turns his head and squints over the horizon of the overstuffed hotel pillow. "Yeah. I got plans." He's suspicious for a second. "You and your partner aren't gonna call me up to do something stupid on Christmas, are you?"

"Not unless it's a matter of life and death." Finch isn't looking back at him. He has his hands clasped neatly on his belly, his eyes on the vent in the ceiling. "Which, admittedly, it could be. I hope not. It'd be a shame to ruin your holiday." Finch drums his fingertips on his stomach in time with an almost inaudible jazz piece that's filtering scratchily through the clock radio. "What will you be doing?"

"I lucked out," Fusco says, and he starts grinning to himself like a dope because he still can't get over how good it is. "Got the whole day off on Christmas. Not even a short shift. Talked to my ex about it and she said I could take our kid for a day." He rolls his shoulders back against the mattress, stretches his legs out with toes pointed. "'Course, I think she's angling for some alone time with the new guy."

"New guy?"

"Ted. He's a music teacher. Seems decent enough. Lee likes him okay."

Finch gives a bland, possibly disinterested, "Ah."

"Anyway, what do I care? I haven't gotten all of Christmas with Lee since...I dunno. Sometime before the divorce, probably." Behind his eyes, there's a sudden sting. Christmases before the divorce. Jesus. Let's not. Not next to him. "It's gonna be great," he finishes lamely. "What about you? Any plans?"

Finch inhales, sharp and hesitant. "No. Nothing in particular. I certainly can't go away for the holidays. Not in this line of work. Something might come up at any time." He peers at Fusco out the corner of his eyes. "I imagine you can relate."

"Yeah. Well, nothing wrong with Christmas in the city, right? You and...you and the other guy, maybe?"

"Maybe." Finch frowns. "I think John gets melancholy around the holidays."

"That doesn't sound like him."

Finch gives him a weak thump on the upper arm. "Stop that." The back of his hand lingers on Fusco's bicep, strokes sleepily down to his elbow. "Dinner out, I think. Dinner and perhaps a show."

"Radio City?"

"Absolutely not." His eyes slip half-shut. "Or a quiet night in. Those are becoming something of a rarity."

"Mhmm." Fusco inches a little closer, plants a close-mouthed kiss in the space behind Finch's ear, right on his thin, stiff hair. "Mind if I roll you?"

Finch's eyes flutter open and fix Fusco with a slightly annoyed stare.

"Relax, I'm not making a pass at you. Just onto your side. I wanna..."

Wordlessly, Finch rolls, turns his back to Fusco. The sheet rides down around his hips and on his pale back, on his soft neck, you can see scars. Fusco pushes himself flat against the scars, throws his arm around Finch's chest and holds him still. "I'm not going to Radio City either," he says. "Might make it out to Rockefeller Center, though. Maybe it's played out, but the kid still needs to work on his skating."

"Do you?" Finch asks. "Skate, I mean."

"Ha. I can get from point A to point B. Just don't expect me to look good doing it." He pushes his face into Finch's hair, risks a deep breath. "My dad used to take us. On Christmas. If he could."

"Why couldn't he?"

"He worked. Like me. Probably missed more Christmases than he was there for, but I remember the ones where he was around a bit better. He'd sleep in for once in his damn life and we'd all tiptoe around getting breakfast together so we didn't wake him up before he was ready. We'd do the whole present thing but that, ah, that never took too long. So we'd go skating, all of us. Me, my brothers, my mom, and him. It was nice. I hardly ever saw him not slumped in a chair after work." He sighs. "It's important, you know? I want Lee to have a few days like that." Fusco's feet are kinda cold. He presses his toes to Finch's thin calves, finds the tops of socks still on.

"My father worked from home," Finch says suddenly. "He was a mechanic and it was a small town, so he rarely had to work on the holidays. I do remember one year there was a particularly harsh winter. A lot of engine failure, a lot of accidents. A lot of business, to be perfectly callous. I don't think there was a single day in the two weeks I was home from school that he wasn't working." Fusco feels Finch's hands on the arm that Fusco slung across Finch's chest, just hanging on. "Of course," Finch continues, "I was with him all that time. If my father was working, so was I."

Fusco says, "I didn't know you could fix cars." He's still reeling from the idea that Finch has a place of birth, that Finch has a dad. Which, of course he did, but there's a part of Fusco that's spent all this time convinced that Finch sprang fully-formed from a library somewhere because the man is unreal. Rubbing his cheek against the brush of Finch's hair, Fusco can't imagine a young Finch, a Finch who wears jeans and knows engines, a Finch with motor oil under his nails. He can try, but he just ends up with a sort of miniaturized version of the Finch he knows, peering daintily under the hood of a car with an expression of distaste.

"I haven't," Finch says, "for years, but I imagine I could, if I had to." He inches back against Fusco's chest. "I learned a good deal from my father. I don't know if I ever learned more from anyone else." He pauses. "I think that's the first time I've mentioned him to anybody in...oh, I don’t know. A very long time."

"He sounds like a great guy."

"He was." Finch pushes his head up beneath Fusco's chin needily. "What are you getting your son for Christmas?"

"Hockey tickets," he says. "The Bruins. Next month."

Finch is silent. "Not the Rangers?"

"My folks are from Boston, originally. This shit runs deep."

"Very well." Finch loops one ankle around Fusco's beneath the blankets. "I have to admit, I never cared for hockey. All that violence."

"'S alright. You don't have to like all the stuff I like."

"More of a baseball fan, myself."

"So long as you're not a Yankees fan, I'm not kicking you out of bed."

Finch presses a kiss to his cheek. The two of them lie in a loose tangle in bed, not saying anything. There's a muted quality to the sounds of the street outside. When Fusco peeks, it's snowing.

He checks to make sure Finch is awake before nudging him. "Hey. Snow."

Finch blinks sleepily at him before sitting up in bed and gazing at the window with the weirdest look on his face. The snowflakes, big and fat and fluffy and yellow from the hotel's exterior lights, collect in a thin, fleecy blanket on the balcony.

"Hey. Uh. Listen." Finch doesn't look away from the window, but Fusco can tell, from the set of his spine, that he's listening. "The kid's gonna be pretty tuckered out from running around all day. I bet money he passes out before 10. So if you wanted to maybe swing by my place..."

Finch turns from the hip and fixes him with that weird, fragile look.

"...you know, since you're gonna be in town. That'd be fine by me. I'd like to have you there. If you don't have anything better to do."

His lips twitch and Fusco's not sure what expression they're trying on. "We've never met at your place," he says, carefully neutral, "have we?"

"Nope. Never." He grins. "I'll clean up for you, if that's what you're worried about, princess."

Finch attempts a shove, but what he does is lean flat against Fusco. "In that case, I'd be happy to."

"Good." 

It's like in that moment, they run out of things to say. Even the really mundane shit, like "Hey, I'm gonna go get a shower" or "Just so you know, I'm leaving early tomorrow morning" or "Do you want room service or not?" They're just sleepy and quiet and content and neither one of them needs to be talking right now.

Fusco sits upright, back against the nice cool headboard, pillow curled up behind his neck at Finch's insistence. Finch lies down again because Finch's back can only manage so much. He pillows his head on Fusco's lap, which Fusco thinks probably isn't any better for Finch's back, but Finch doesn't seem to care. So Fusco draws up the sheets and blankets so they're circled around his hips and Finch's head.

They don't sleep, either of them. They just watch through the hotel window as snow collects on the balcony and on the railings and on the building across the way and listen to the sounds of a city moving in stocking feet.

 


End file.
